Ephesians 2.8, now this is my
text I used this morning. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of
words, lest any man should boast. Now you remember I talked about
grace, love for the grace of God. We can't wear out the word. We can't ever plumb the depths
of the grace of God. Talked about a covenant of grace,
grace that molds us and forms us and makes us who we are as
believers. Molds our minds, our wills, our
affections, our obedience, our thoughts. You know, believers
don't think like the world thinks. They don't view things the way
the world does. Then I talked about regenerating
grace, how that God must, it's a work that God does. God can
only give life, and then restraining grace. Now I want to pick up
where I left off. I want to talk about growing
in grace. Growth in grace. Now I want you
to look with me, first and foremost, over here at 1 Peter chapter
2 and verse 1. When we talk about growing in
grace, most people think that they're going to start growing
up. But to grow in grace, you're growing down. You really are. To grow in grace is to see more
of your need of grace. To grow in grace, instead of
growing up, is going down. Thinking more, thinking less
and less and less of yourself and more and more and more of
Christ. Seeing more you need. A person who's growing in grace
is growing more in the need of grace, more in their need of
mercy, more in their need of Christ, more in their need of
everything. The more they need to understand
things, to experience things, and to trust Christ. Oh, how
many times have we said, oh, how I'd love to completely trust
Christ and just leave me out of it all together. Get down
and pray and ask the Lord to do something and get up and start
right back where you left off with your mind. Working, you
know. Instead of leaving it, actually
leaving it there. And say, Lord, you'll take care
of it. And know that He will. But we get up. But that's what
growing in grace is. It's growing downward. I've used this illustration before
about growing in grace and growing in the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Is that the older a cow is, The
longer her tail gets. And when she gets real old, her
tail will drag the ground. And that's where we'll be. I mean, you know, the older we
get in grace, the more we'll drag. I mean, we'll understand
ourselves and know that we haven't got anything. We grow downward,
downward, downward. But look what he said here in
verse 2 of 1 Peter chapter 2. And here's what we do. It says
here, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word
that you may grow thereby. If so be that you've tasted that
the Lord is gracious. And if you've tasted the grace
of God, tasted how gracious the Lord is, and He's gracious every
moment, not a moment that God has existed, not a moment that
we've existed and been God's children, that he hasn't been
gracious. Gracious in every moment of every
day of our lives, sleeping or waking, praying or preaching,
singing or whatever, he's been gracious. And he said, you know,
if you've been gracious, then you seek this word. You seek
to grow. You seek to grow in the knowledge,
and that's what Peter said in 2 Peter 3.18, grow in the grace
and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But let me tell you this,
you cannot grow in grace if you don't have grace. If there's
not any grace in you, you can't grow in grace. And that's why
some people never seem to grow in grace. They just stay stagnant.
They just stay the same. They never change. They never
seem to change in their thoughts, their attitude, their nature,
the way they view the gospel, the way they react to the word,
the way they react to the gospel. They just never, ever seem to
make any, they just don't ever seem to change their interests.
They tend to services. And they hear the same message,
but it seems like they just never grow, they never grow as an ecto.
But all to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Let's talk about growing in knowledge. You know, Paul
told the Philippians, he says, I want you to understand the
love of Christ. I want you to know the depth,
the breadth, the height, the length of it. The love of Christ. And then the next word he says
is to pass this understanding. So you see, we want knowledge
of the love of God. Oh, to know the love of God.
To experience the love of God. To know more about the love of
God. I preached a message here a few
years ago seven things about God's love out of seven truths
from John chapter 3 and verse 16, 14, 15, 16. It had almost 1800 downloads
on it because people have such an odd view of the love of God
that they don't, when you start telling about what the love of
God's really like and who it's really for, And that's why the
Scriptures tell us that if there's any love in us at all, it's God
that put it there. And then we want to learn about
His love. What about His sacrifice? To know about His sacrifice.
We just read a thing in there tonight in the study about our
Lord Jesus Christ. He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities. So whose transgressions was He
bruised for? And whose transgressions was
He wounded for? And those transgressions for
whom He was wounded and bruised, did He actually, did they have
them? Or did He have them? And if He had them, that means
that we can't have them. They can't be in two places at
the same time. So when you understand that Christ,
in His sacrifice for sin, if He bore your sin, or my sin,
or whoever sin He bore, you'll never have to bear them again.
And you'll never have to face God for those sins ever again.
And that's why we understand the sacrifice of Christ. He offered
himself a sacrifice. He made his soul an offering
to God. He made his body. He says, Thou
hast prepared me a body. What did he prepare the body
for? A body to be crucified. A body that he can die in. A body that he can face sin in. A body that he can face the wrath
of God in. A body that he can face the justice
of God. A body that he can suffer in. And all, bless His name, know
to think about His death. Death is a horrible thing. Death is a thing that wouldn't
any of you experience. You ain't coming back from it.
But our Lord Jesus Christ, wherever there's sin, it's the soul that
sins and must die. And since Christ bore all of
our sin, and bore His elect sin, and bore the sins of His people,
God inflicted on Him the penalty of sin, which is death. And that's
why he said, he that believeth on the Son of God, he hath life. We're not done. We don't have
death. We have life. When we leave this world, we're
believers. We now don't care who they are. My wife, your wife,
some of you lost your husbands, lost your wives, lost your children.
And if they had Christ and they knew Christ, they did not die. They went immediately into life.
The body did. But that body's not them. We're
living souls in dying bodies. That's what we are. We're what
we call souls. Our souls are saved. Not our
bodies. It's our souls that Christ died
to save. It's our souls that Christ put
to the grave. He said His soul is exceeding
sorrowful. And not this body is to be dissipated
and die to save this body. This body will be changed in
a moment in the Kingdom of God when He comes again. But I tell
you, beloved, because Christ died and was raised again for
our justification, that's why I said, He that hath the Son
hath life. I'm dead, that's why I said, no shame,
no stress, no power. It's got greed to it, yes. It's
got solitude to it, yes. It's got tears to it, yes. But
no wonder the Bible says, blessed are they that die in the Lord. And precious in the sight of
the Lord is the death of all these things. Now why in the
world would anybody back up from that? The best moment of a believer's
life is the time they leave here and go there! We're the ones left here with
tears, and we're the ones left here with sorrow, but they know
to be with the Lord. Oh, so when we think of His death,
He died that we might have life. And when he went to that grave,
he destroyed the power of the grave for us. I heard one fellow
say he perfumed it. You know, Mary perfumed his body
and poured out that box of spikement over it and anointed him to go
through his burial. And when he went to the grave,
they put all these spikes on it. He smelled so good and risen
because he smelled good. We don't smell good. Oh listen, you think about his
death, think about, oh my, to have a knowledge of his life,
knowledge of his resurrection. He's the only person, other than
the ones he himself gave life to the dead, the only person
who resurrected by his own power. Everybody else was resurrected
by his power, but he went to the grave and raised himself
by his own power. It was time for death to be done
with Him. Justice to be done with Him.
Sin to be done with Him. Corruption never did enter His
body. And when it was time for Him
to come back to life, He walked out of that tomb by His own power.
And the next thing you know, He says, He told me, He says,
you go over in Galilee and tell all them fellows in Peter, I'll
meet them over there just in a little bit. They said, oh, he's a spirit.
No, he said, listen, touch me, handle me. Oh my, he resurrected. You know
what that means? We'll do the same thing. What
kind of body are we going to have? Whatever body he had. And
oh, what about his satisfaction? This is the best thing about
our Lord's death and everything. This is the, this is the, this
is of all of our Lord's death. The most blessed thing about
his death was the satisfaction that he rendered God. What did you say about your father?
He said, you don't sound good if you say, well, this is it.
That ain't nothing, sir. You ain't no better than me.
Listen, I'm telling you. Christ satisfied God on the behalf
of all His people. God does not never look for you
and me to satisfy Him in any way. He satisfied His holiness,
satisfied His righteousness, satisfied His justice, satisfied
His love, satisfied everything about Him. Heaven's attribute
of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, honored and satisfied. And as old Scott Richardson said
one time, I'll never forget it, I'll never forget it. This man
and Mary both sitting there, this giant one and I said, what? Oh,
what? He said, all that will ever satisfy
a screaming conscience is a perfect sacrifice. And Christ offered
a perfect sacrifice. And when you understand that
He offered everything that God required, then your soul will
go to rest when you rest in Him. Ain't that right? Then people
sing that song, I wonder if my Lord's satisfied with me. Well
He did not. You listen. He ain't never ever
looked at any human being for satisfaction for nothing. And
oh my. He's satisfied. And I'll tell
you this about it. I'll tell you this about it. Our Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody
wants to talk about what His death done for them. God had
to do something for Himself first before He could do anything for
us. And that's what His satisfaction was about. When He hung on that
cross, He satisfied God. Justice had cried out for sins
to be punished. It was! Love cried out, said,
Oh, I've got to have obedience. He got it. Righteousness said,
I must be upheld. It was! Holiness says, I will
not be satisfied with anything less than perfection. He got
it. And I by no means cleared the
guilty or quit the wicked. He didn't. He punished the guilty. And He satisfied everything that
was against us. He done it first for Himself
and now He can come do something for us. He's got to first be
a just God before he can ever justify you or me. I ain't never got over that yet.
I've not got over how God can be just and justify a miserable
wretched bus like us. A miserable wretch like me. Born
in sin. shame and iniquity come forth
from my mother's womb speaking lies sinned every day that I've
drawn a breath on topside of God's earth since before conversion
and after conversion and ain't never done anything right, perfect,
good, glorious in any way and yet God can save me and do it justly
so Justly so. That's an astounding
thing to me. And oh boy, to know and know
more about His blood, His righteousness, oh His sinless, sinless humanity. How are we going to learn about
Him? Where are we going to get this knowledge of Him? How are
we going to grow in this grace? Learn of Him in His Word. Oh,
His Word. Read His blessed Word. Knowledge
how we gonna know anything about His will. Know all about it in
His Word. How about His ways? Oh, Lord,
teach us Your ways. Then His character. Oh, what
a character our Savior has. What a wonderful character. You
think, if somebody asked you to describe the Lord Jesus Christ,
how would you describe Him? In fact, if I described any one
of you, I would describe your character, not your physical
appearance. Somebody mentions your name,
I start talking about your character, your personality, the type of
person you are, not how you look. And that's why we talk about
our Savior. We talk about His character,
His personality. That does not enter my mind anymore,
this image of That don't enter my mind anymore. That's what
I'm talking about, have grace towards you. I've got that so
far away from me now that it never enters my mind what He
looks like. I just see Him. I see a person and I see a character. I see a nature. I see this man
who is perfectly sinless and holy and he walks around and
he has such compassion, he has such pity, he has such love,
he has such concern, he has such power, he has such forgiveness,
he has such understanding, he has such wisdom, he has such
empathy, he has such understanding of every soul and everything
they go through. He looks into the heart, and
he can look into your heart, and like he did Simon Peter,
told him what he was going to do, and then we see Simon Peter
right back. When you start thinking about it, you see it then and
there, and everything you do. When somebody's hungry, he says,
listen, sit down here, I've got off each. Somebody's sick, sit
down here, I'll give you. Somebody's sinful, say, oh, listen,
I can forgive you that. And that's what we do when we
think about Him. We think about, oh, this person and what he does. Oh, bless His name. And as we
learn more about our Master, the more we'll be transformed
into His image. And glory and grace is more of
Him and less of ourselves. Joe Terrell used an illustration
one time years ago. He said, you know, you remember
these great old redwood seesaws you used to get on? Great old
big boards, you know, where they'd be there and you'd, oh, oh, oh. He said, Christ said, it's like
being on a seesaw. He says, when you're down here,
the other fellow's up there. And he says, Christ's up here,
when we're down there, Christ's up there. But when we come up
like this, then Christ is down here. And we certainly don't
want that. So let's stay down here. Christ's always up there. Just
stay down there. Let me show you an open second
Corinthians chapter 12. Oh, our blessed master. Oh, what
a Savior. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus
our Lord. What a wonderful Savior to me. Oh, no one like him. No one like him. That's why you can just actually
talk to Him like you talk to people. You really can. You can say, Master. You can
say, Jesus. You can say, Savior. You can
say, Lord. And Lord, I come to talk to you. I come to tell you what I'm going
through. I come to tell you what I need.
I come to tell you my sin. And I've committed this sin,
and I'm sorry. And I'm not going to promise
you I won't do it again, but Lord, please forgive him. You
talk to him just like that. We really care. Okay, let's start reading here
in verse 7, 2 Corinthians 12. I want to talk about sufficient
grace. Paul is writing here, he said,
lest I be exalted above measure, Through the abundance of revelations,
oh God gave him revelation after revelation after revelation.
Of so many things. Oh how the revelations he had.
And he said, since I was going to, you know he had a problem
with pride and being exalted. He said, unless I get exalted
above any measure that I'm supposed to be. He said there was given
to me a thorn in the flesh. the messenger of Satan to profit
me. That's exactly what happened to Job, wasn't it? Exactly what
happened to Job. And lest I should be exalted
above man. And for this thing, I besought
the Lord three times that it might depart from me. Three times, Lord, please save
me from this thorn in the flesh. You waited two or three days,
Lord, please save me from this thorn in the flesh. Waited a
few days, Lord, save me from this thorn in the flesh. You
know what our Master said to him? My grace is sufficient for
thee. Oh, you just don't know what
I'm going through, preacher. Oh, my grace is sufficient for
you. You don't know how heavy my burden
is. Oh, my grace is sufficient for
you. And then look what he said, this
is one of the most astounding statements in the word of God.
For my strength, he told Paul this, my strength is made perfect
in weakness. Now, how weak are we? How weak are we? How weak are
we really? He said, I'll tell you what. When you're so weak that you
absolutely have no strength left, he said, that's when my strength
is made perfect. When you can't stand, my strength
is made perfect. When you can't function, my strength
is made perfect. When you're scaring me out of
your wits, my strength is made perfect. When you're so burdened
you can't think of your own name. He said, My strength made perfect. And I'll tell you why His grace
is sufficient, because then Paul goes on to say, So gladly therefore
will I rather glory my infirmities If I'm on boast about anything,
he said, listen, I'll talk about how weak I am, how frail I am,
how empty I am. And he said, I'll do this, you
know why? That the power of Christ may
rest upon me. I'm not going to say anything
about myself. I'm going to go story and me having nothing,
know nothing and can do nothing, that the power of Christ may
be on me. I'm going to have His power on me as for me to have
any revelation, any strength, I'd rather have infirmities and
know my weaknesses and my inabilities than have the power of Christ
rest in old me. Right? Now let me tell you what it's
sufficient for. It's sufficient for suffering. It's sufficient
for trials. It's sufficient for afflictions.
And this is what I love about this grace. It's not only sufficient
for suffering and trials and afflictions, but it's sufficient
for us to live. And not only live, but live fully. To live freely and live abundantly. You know His grace is sufficient
for us to actually live in this world. And to live freely, to
live fully. And live honorably to God. And
live honorably for Christ. And it's sufficient to hundreds.
You remember, so Mary, she and Stickman, her and both, decided
right then and there, after about a couple of weeks of thinking
about it, said, we're going to live. We're going to go, and
we're going to do what we want to do, and go where we want to
go, and we're going to live until we can't live anymore. And that's
what we've done. We went and did what we wanted
to do, and if you ain't... Listen, let me tell y'all something
right now. If you got places you want to go and things you
want to do, do it. Do it. Do it while you can. I tell you what, that's what's,
you don't, you don't, you don't, that grace, this grace that caused
us to live like that. Grace enables you to live fully
and freely, honorably. And oh my, His strength, then perfected weakness. Who's
weak? Paul said, who is weak? And I'm weak. Oh, I've got two
little poems and I'll be done. Let me show you this over in
1 Peter 5. Yeah, it's grace to live by. And here's keeping grace. Keeping
grace. Look what he said here in 1 Peter
chapter 5 verse 10, But the God of all grace, who hath called
us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have
suffered a while, make ye perfect, established faith, and settle
you to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Now I tell
you, our Lord Jesus Christ here is the God of all grace, as keeping
grace. What he said in chapter 1 verse
5, he says here, we're kept by the power of God through faith.
Most of us when we talk about being kept, we think about God
keep us from some things. But grace keeps us for some things.
God keeps us for some things. Not only does He keep us from
some things, but He keeps us to some things and for some things.
You know, it's grace that keeps us believing. It's grace that
keeps us cleaving. It's grace that keeps us loving.
It's grace that keeps us loving Christ. It's grace that keeps
us loving His Word. It's grace that keeps us loving
His people. And so he keeps us and gives
us, you know, it saves us from some things and to some things.
I've got two scriptures I want to show you. First, look in Isaiah
54 and 10. Just a minute. Oh, keeping grace. And you know He keeps us. The
God of all grace. You know, He told Satan, He said,
if you consider my servant Job perfect, Perfect. He said, I'm going to put a hedge
around it. Now you can have me, but I'm going to put a hedge around
it. And I tell you what, God keeps a hedge around us, and
He keeps saints from us, and keeps us from things. But there
are some things He keeps us to and for. And Luke and Isaiah
54, look what it says. Talking about keeping us now.
For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed. But
my kindness shall not depart from thee, Neither shall the
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy
on thee. That's a wonderful verse. Look
at Jeremiah 33 with me just a moment. Jeremiah 33 20. Jeremiah, you're talking about keeping
grace. Jeremiah 33 20. You know, God
keeps us in this life You're my 3320. Thus saith the Lord, if you can
break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night,
he said, as long as the world stands, there'll be a day and
a night and four seasons. If you can break my covenant
of the day and my covenant of the night, that there should
not be day and night in their season, then also may my covenant
be broken with my David, with David my servant, that he should
not have a son to reign on his throne. I mean, that's, God said,
if you can ever stop me, day and night stop, then that's
when I'll stop caring for you and keeping you. That's what
I'll do. And I say He keeps us in this life and He keeps us
for the next life. And that's why He said He called
us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus our Lord. I know
I'm wearing you out, but let me show you one other scripture.
You'll love this. Isaiah 46. Isaiah 46. I don't mean to. But these scriptures
are so precious. So wonderful. And you read them for yourself
here and you'll see what a blessing they are. Isaiah 46, verses 3 and 4, talking about keeping us, preserving
us. Harken unto me, O house of Jacob,
and all the ribbon of the house of Israel, now listen to this,
which are borne by me from the belly. Carried you from your
mother's womb. Would it please God who separated
me from my mother's womb? Jeremiah for you is formed in
your mother's belly. I knew you. And I was born by
me from the belly which I carried from the womb. Now listen to
this. Even to your old age I am he. And even to your gray hairs
will I carry you. I have made and I will bear.
Even I will carry and will deliver you. What do you reckon he's doing
right now? Carrying us? Bearing us? I got all this grey
hair, me and you, we got all this grey hair. He carries us. He gonna carry us right down
to our old age. He gonna carry us right on into
glory. But alright, let me show you
another and then I'm done. Over in Hebrews chapter 4 and
verse 16. Then I'm done. Oh, thank God. Oh, I feel so
good to feel His presence. Talk about a throne of grace.
Now, keeping grace, formative grace, covenant of grace, regenerating
grace, sustaining grace, sufficient grace. But now look here. Here's
a throne of grace. Paul said here, the writer of
Hebrews said, let us, in verse 16, Hebrews 4, Let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in the time of need. You know, there
are several thrones in the scriptures. There's the throne of God's government.
He says, The heaven is my throne, the earth is my place to live.
He governs the world off His throne. There's the throne of
glory. I say, I saw the Lord high and
lifted up. And His glory filled the temple.
And then there's the throne of judgment, the great white throne.
The throne of judgment. But I'm going to tell you something.
We've already been to the throne of judgment. It doesn't mean
judgment. And we love His government because
the government's on the shoulders of our Lord Jesus Christ. He
says the government's on His shoulder. So he's a good governor,
I tell you, he's a good governor. He provides well, don't charge
no taxes, and don't take nothing from you. He said don't do nothing
but care for us. And Lord, we've seen his glory.
We like Isaiah, we saw his glory, we see his glory to some degree.
But oh, listen. Because we've already been to
judgment, because we've already, Christ's got the government on
His shoulders, and we see His glory. There's only one throne
left for us to go to. And we go there regularly and
constantly. Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace. Grace sets on the throne. Sets
on the throne. Come on, this throne. Oh, what
do you want me to get? Well, give me some grace while
I'm up there. Give me some grace while I'm up there. And we go
to this throne of grace that we may obtain mercy. Oh, and
listen, listen to what he says finally. And find grace to help. When? In time of need. So the next time you're in time
of need, go to the throne of grace. God will show you mercy,
and He'll give you grace to help you. Grace. What a wonderful,
wonderful word. What a wonderful salvation. All
of grace. Our Father, O our Father, O blessed be Your name. How wonderfully kind and gracious
You are. Thank you for the grace of God.
Oh Lord, we love your grace. Thank you for your grace. Keep
us by your grace. Grow us in your grace. And we
come tonight to the throne of grace. And we came And we did
obtain mercy, and you gave us grace in our time of need. You
did, you do, and you will. And we bless you for it. God
bless these dear children of God. Ever home, ever heart, ever
need. Lord, as they pray for me and
Mary, I pray for them. As they love us, we love them. And Lord, as we all look together
to You, to keep us, to keep us. We bless You, Christ. Amen. Let's
start with 209. We'll sing a couple of verses
of this. 209. Then we'll sing a couple
of verses of this. God bless, gracious, our loving
Lord. There were the blood of the lamb washed in grace's grace. God's grace, grace that will
pardon and cleanse within Grace, grace God's grace, grace that
is greater than all our sins. Sing that fourth verse. Marvelous,
infinite, matchless grace, freely that are longing to see His face. With this moment, His grace meets
me. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that Grace, grace, God's grace, grace
that is greater than all our sin.